They had pinched his wounds closed with a fever that burned deep and harsh, yet it knitted his flesh.

This was healing, they said, looking unwaveringly at his battered form.

It was Maedhros who turned away, closing his eyes, drunk of the sight of their faces.

I knew your names once, recited them so many times…

"Our brother burns."

"That is not unusual."

"Findekano left." The Ambarussa said. "And he's falling apart. Everyone's noting it, it's worse than when it happened with father."

That was a mild way of putting it, thought Celegorm, though he did not say it. Of Feanor, after all, people who saw him were already prepared for splendid and strange things. Unfortunately, Maedhros inspired no such expectations at the moment. That, a wiser voice added in his head, must be corrected. As if hearing his thoughts, Huan made the canine equivalent of a snort.

"Fingon's the only one that holds his sanity together?" Celegorm asked instead. He was crouched low on the ground, staring intently at the trail, what's left of it anyways. Really, people had been stamping about too much. Celegorm planned to talk about it, later. "What about us?"

"We are the familiar things for his comfort, Findekano's the balm which heals." Amrod replied smoothly, and looked at Amras who was staring at something in the distance.

"You're all suddenly very wise lately, speaking in the abstract and the weirdly metaphorical. Curufin told me the other day that Maitimo's too much in love with the idea of eternity and is languishing for the lack of it. But we can do nothing about that." Celegorm paused and said, aiming for distraction: "What do you think of the trail?"

"Perhaps it'll be better if Nelya go with Findekano for a while?"

"Go with?"

"Stay with," Amras said, frowning a little. Amrod looked at him, startled.

"And pray you, from whence came that outlandish idea?" Celegorm asked, torn between amusement and irritation. Children and their incoherencies. What would Feanor think?

"Nolofinwe's not going to let his son stay for longer." Amras pointed out, "It's only fair since he stayed with us for almost half a season. Who knows, Nelya would be fully healed. Findekano cheers him up. Strange, you might think, him being a reminder of his time up that cliff. But while he was here, Nelya was so," He searched for a word amidst that confusion of sentences, "Nice."

"It's not and it won't." Celegorm said patiently, though he suspected secretly, without the politics, that won't be true. Artlessness or not, at least the Ambarussa knew the crux of a solution- Feanorians are not meant to be alone, least of all a suffering one. Everyone suffers in the aftermath. Maedhros had been nice while Findekano was here, nicer than any self-respecting man would act while receiving a guest. Furthermore, he was even nice to Curufin. This, and other things, leads to a trail of reasoning he's unwilling to follow. Ambarussa was looking at him intently, with a hurt look in their eyes. Celegorm sighed and looked away. He wished his own friend was here. Above his own selfish desire for familiar companionship and conversations loosed by friendship, at least he would have something to measure that between Fingon and Maedhros against.

"It cannot be far from here." He heard himself say, and the self-answering Ambarussa debated the merits of his comment.

If he was here, Celegorm thought, I would not mind so much that Findekano comforted Nelya or questioned their friendship so much, Fingon being the amiable enemy in our Noldorin dispute. But my great friend stayed Valinor, and Findekano came, and would with or without Nolofinwe's leave. And Anaire didn't come, when she above anyone craved new things and was Nolofinwe's wife who shared his home for longer than I've been alive. Celegorm looked down at the scuffed toes of his shoes and was forced to consider again if it was madness that seized them all that day, why some and not others? And what manner of madness had seized him? He was sure by now that no one had escaped it. There had been so many odd behavior lately…

Huan gave a low whine and prodded him with his nose. The Ambarussa was speaking. Celegorm felt slightly ashamed of himself for being so distracted. Perhaps it's the madness, he thought, but I am neither Cano nor Nelya.

"We'll lose it over the stream even with Huan," Amras said. The hound glared darkly at the twins. "Whatever it was, it was scouting our territory for the last week without anyone ever setting eyes on it."

"Obvious intelligence," Celegorm said and felt quagmire thoughts washed away. "But now we're hunting." He smiled tightly. There! There no madness can touch me.

"What do you think?" Curufin asked. Maglor was scratching something on a piece of paper. At Curufin's voice, he glanced up. "Think of what?"

Curufin felt patronized, but it was Maglor's way.

"How will we get through…" He asked.

"Winter?" Maglor interrupted, "We just got through one. Aren't you a bit hasty to.."

"He's more trouble…" Curufin started, than stopped, thinking better of it. He stared at Maglor warily. His brother seemed meticulously unwashed. His cuffs were frayed and inkstained, spots of ash and mud dotted his cheeks and neck, yet his hands were clean.

"What? Than his worth?" Curufin bristled at Maglor's voice. It's his wandering voice, one that he used when dealing with the disturbances when he was composing.

"At the present, yes." Curufin answered shortly. The flow of words was too discontinous, it grated on his ears.

Maglor did not answer. He glanced down at the paper on his desk again. Curufin waited, hearing agreement in the silence. You thought so too, otherwise you would not have said it. But then Maglor looked up, and this time there were two high spots of color on his cheeks beneath the mud.

"And where did you get that? Carnistir's accounting books?" His voice was sharp. Curufin wondered if it was for shame or anger.

"He also conducts polls." He said evenly.

Maglor smiled unpleasantly and Curufin wished he did not call this man brother. As reading his thoughts, Maglor continued: "Isn't he the model of good government? Our officious brother." The quality of which was unmistakably a vicious one. Maglor had a voice that inflected precisely, even if that polite, almost scuffed looking face showed nothing. Curufin felt a muscle jerk in his arm. He made himself speak instead. The words quivered in his throat, and his muscles were still tense.

"That's cruel and unfair. Macalaure. He wanted to know what people think of their own lives."

"Yes, he has a feel for people's opinions. People's opinions," Maglor laid his hands flat on the desk, covering whatever he was writing and stared at them, "Curufin, those are ridiculous things to consider now. We will not survive if we listen to them. It'll be anarchy." Curufin clamped his mouth shut and spoke through his teeth.

"Grandfather would not agree."

"Grandfather's dead. And he ruled in peace, not in shadow." Maglor answered, words so clipped that the end of one treaded on the beginning of another. The effect was disconcerting, not to mention irritating.

"For one so well versed with words, you can be amazingly stupid at times." Curufin said, tried and still trying for that inner calm Celegorm told him about: he had been teaching him patience, "This assumed authority is ridiculous and you know it. He's playing an ugly game with Nolofinwe." He drew a breath, and winced at the sight of Maglor's face. He did not expect Maglor to have worked himself to a state when he planned them. "You know it. You saw his expressions as he left, and we've known him for so long as well. He's not a man that showed irritation lightly. What did Maitimo tell him, alone and being Nelyafinwe? Don't protest. We don't know our brother, not anymore. We hardly know ourselves. This goes beyond Fingon and all he might represent, his past goodwill and his friendship are valued, but he is of Nolofinwe's house, a house with folks full of resentment. What Nelya does with Findekano is at the best-subversion, and at the worst, treason, on either party's part. People are confused, displeased. The muddle of who's paying allegiance to who undermines…."

That's not true, Maglor wanted to say. Fingon's neither threat nor distraction; he's compensation and appeasement. Would you deal with Maitimo in his melodramatic moods Curufin? Maedhros deserved respite, away from all this mangling of the things he knew to be true, and which are true, if people do not so often think of how lying might benefit one another. Why should we ply our dark thoughts on him who had suffered for being everything we're slowly betraying? How about we put you up on a cliff for ten years, Curufin, take away your hand and see how you deal with that? And as soon as he thought of it, Maglor was ashamed. Curufin continued, centering on the thought that this was a problem, and he a means to solve it.

"Turukano, in all his cool grace and restraint," Maglor suddenly remembering an incident from very long ago and suppressed a smile; the occasion's inappropriate. "Wrote to me and asked: 'What does Maitimo want, we can ill afford time and resources for troubling words that would only serve to fuel conspiracies and disquiet'; I agree with him, Cano. Find out."

"Find out?"

Curufin found Maglor's bewilderment calming. As much as he's aware of Turukano's sentiments against him, he was not so petty as not to recognize a pragmatist when he sees one. Maitimo the mystery had disconcerted the wise Finwion. Even if Turukano never wrote of it, one can scarcely believe that Nolofinwe visited and left with a dark face and would do nothing about whatever caused it. Their uncle's one of those who's slow to anger, and he shared the Finwean trait of a long memory.

"Find out what Nelya's planning. He thinks me a revolting reminder of what's happening here. Your are…" Curufin's trying not to be inoffensive. Maglor was patient.

"Yes?"

"Ethereal with your poetry and songs. Your voice brings to mind those things." At least, it can, he thought darkly.

"Ah."

"He likes the escapism." Curufin said, frowning, wandering perhaps it's a transgression to say that now, here, away from… Maglor seemed unmoved.

"So find out," Curufin repeated, "What he wants and wishes, from anyone or anything." Maglor opened his mouth. "Pertinent to these times of course." Curufin added hastily.

"What? Me?"

"You have your voice." Curufin said pointedly, again.

"Yes, it's mine." Maglor agreed.

"Would you rather use it to beguile others into believing what you want?" Maglor flinched.

"At least, this way," Curufin mused, "Time is not lost and we can be surer of the opportunities available to us. What's the trouble? You do admit that he favors you above us." Maglor shifted back and stood abruptly.

"You forget yourself!" Curufin stepped back, eyed warily at the sword girt around Maglor's waist before staring somewhere in the vicinity of Maglor's mouth, pressed thin and white. He lifted his chin: "But it's true." And with that, turned and left, swirling his cape and causing some pieces of paper to flutter onto the ground.

Maglor for a while afterwards, remained standing.

A Maitimo in delirium, thoughts scattered and strewn upon the twilight and perhaps even the daylight path. What is the trouble? What is the trouble indeed, if he was to sooth and interrogate a man in the throes of nightmares? The trouble, the trouble is that it's both for better and for worse. Maglor did not wish to know Maedhros's nightmares. And yet, no Noldo likes to be puzzled for long and Maedhros, for all his suffering, has worn their patience thin.

"That will leave no one available for patrol." There was a bloody memory of coming up one night after hearing a sound. He didn't know his name, but he knew the other's face, mutilated as it was. The man had a mangled thigh, and bled to death in front of him, his sword splintered and with scratch marks. Celegorm had marveled at them at first. The strength in the maw and claws in the beast must be incredible. He had sat, imagining a thousand different forms and ways to trap every one of them. Yet for all his imaginings, until the creature became fantasy, it returned a month after. Night after night, and though it did not kill again, it maimed, and disappeared. The sentries gave it a name, and a legend, though it's Morgoth's beast: a soft tuft of evil smelling dark fur showed as much, the only trace it left, almost in mockery.

Celegorm hated the name, and hated the story, for they say it had been Orome's favorite creature, stolen, tortured, than perverted. And this he hated one element most of all, that the creature went willingly to follow Melkor, who had opened his palms full of bright rhinestones. It reminded him of something…and that's another thought he would rather not follow.

He's beginning to feel very broken in his thinking lately.

"But the idea of it! Going up the mountains? Are you mad? It's summer." Ambarussa's fierce whispers buzzed angrily in his ears.

"What's wrong with summer? The track leads up to the mountains. We're hunters aren't we?" Celegorm aimed for levity and sighed inwardly as silence fell. They are so old already.

They threw him a withering look instead, entirely too reminiscent of Nerdanel. "Orcs."

"We won't be going far." He said, and for all the reasonableness in that sounded like a petulant child.

"We'll need more people." Amras said without turning his head. His twin shrugged while walking, the motion oddly jarring in Celegorm's eyes. It seemed too irreverent, as if it didn't matter to him one way or another, though Amrod slowed his steps. Waiting, it seems, for a decision. Celegorm looked around. It was late in the afternoon, but the sky was clear, and the ground beneath their feet appeared healthy, Too healthy. A streak of pain ran up his arm.

"We can't afford them." Celegorm gritted his teeth, cradling his hand. The red mark seemed to be swelling. Damn those irritating strange plants. "We don't need them either." Huan whined ahead of them, Celegorm strode past them. One menace in a thousand, but it was there and he could face this one if not others.

Looking dubiously at each other first, the Ambarussa shrugged and followed.

Maglor saw Caranthir glowering outside Maedhros's room and went up to him.

"How's he?" He asked softly. Curufin's words gnawed at his thoughts, uncertain as they were. Caranthir paid no mind to Maglor considerations. Likes and dislikes both equally obscure on his serious face, he glanced at the door he left then at the piece of scratch paper in his hand. He's chewing thoughtfully on a new nib, muttering: "no, no, this won't do at all..the quality.."

Maglor tapped his shoulder. Caranthir turned around.

"Eh?"

Maglor made a discreet motion,

"Half-dead and gaining ground." Replied Caranthir without emotion. He's taken to silence now, staring intently at a point past Maglor's shoulder.

After a while Maglor spoke: "Don't say that." He felt his goodwill toward his brother leaving. A fear for Maedhros took its place instead.

"He might as well be." Continued Caranthir, unaware of the horror now climbing and twisting around Maglor's body.

"Now you…" But the words would not come. That apparently seemed more worrisome to Caranthir than Maglor's tone. Caranthir's tone deaf and had been mercilessly mocked for it when younger.

"No, of course I don't want him dead." He said, and peered closely at Maglor's face. "You're not thinking that of course."

"Of course." Muttered Maglor.

"But he is." Caranthir said. It was the most obvious thing in the world to him and Maglor, for some reason, seemed to be unwilling to accept this simple, if harrowing, fact. There was no need for him to look at him like that, as if he did not understand the words coming out of his mouth.

Taking a deep breath, Maglor tried again.

"What's wrong with him?"

"The poison lingers. Not just of the torments, but of being back here again, so suddenly. You've to realize, he did not know this place we call home. We are not as he remembered. He can't reconcile what he wants with what he has, not yet. The soul and body are confused. And I think, we've been asking too much of him, presuming that he would know our wishes and be in accordance with them. But Maedhros always had been an understanding soul, he's groomed for it, so he would wish to become like us, for better or worse, despite feeling disparaged that his wishes are ignored. Take the matter of setting up plumbing for a small example. Now he's entirely estranged from himself." Caranthir stopped as Maglor appeared stricken.

But it's not as if we are killing him, Caranthir thought, Maglor shouldn't look so guilty.

TBC ..next, the Hunt.